


I Love You, But I'm Not Somebody Who Takes Shots

by ahurston



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Break It Fic, M/M, No HEA, Season 6 Episode 6 Coda Fic, Trust Issues, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:48:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22684237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ahurston/pseuds/ahurston
Summary: David and Patrick, after Jake's party.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 60
Kudos: 65





	I Love You, But I'm Not Somebody Who Takes Shots

**Author's Note:**

> Unbetaed, because I love my beta.

They didn't talk on the drive back to Patrick’s apartment after exiting Jake’s party before the massage circle started up. After pulling some clothes out of his dresser, Patrick went into the bathroom to change out of his short-sleeved ensemble. Meanwhile, David shucked out of his leather jacket and tucked it as deep as possible into the apartment’s sole closet, between out-of-season winter coats and Patrick’s softest blue sweaters. 

“Are you hungry?” Patrick asked, returning from the bathroom in sweats and a baseball shirt from his college days. He looked achingly familiar. David knew this version of him in his bones. 

“Not really,” David said with a shrug. He was the opposite of hungry, really. “I’m going to go to bed, I think. Big day, and all that.”

“Oh. Do you want to—is there anything you want to talk—”

“No, we’re good.”

‘You’re sure?” Patrick asked, leaning on the door frame and evaluating him as David sat on a kitchen chair to unlace his shoes. He looked like was trying to read David's mind. He usually could, after all. David was an open book, albeit one that nobody should want to read.

“Yeah. I’m going to shower. This leather-scented moisturizer needs to come off. Like, now.”

Patrick laughed softly, but David wasn’t kidding. As David slinked past him, Patrick’s fingers traced down his back. 

“Don’t wait up, alright?” David said over his shoulder. “This will take awhile.”

David tried not to notice the little, worried crease between Patrick’s eyebrows as he clicked the bathroom door shut.

Under the shower spray, he thought about Patrick. What Patrick wanted. What Patrick would want, later. Years later. Tonight, it sure seemed like Patrick had wanted Jake. And that made sense. Jake was hot. Hot, and uncomplicated, and he could make a coffee table. And he didn’t hate sports or have too many opinions about skincare and polyester blend fabric and lip balm arrangement. Patrick had worn that shirt, and he’d looked so good, and not like himself at all. Or rather, not like any version of himself David knew. Maybe Patrick wanted that—to look like someone else when he fucked someone else. Someone not-David.

Then he thought about himself. He didn’t want to fuck Jake, he was sure about that. Or Stevie. Or anyone else at that party. He was happy just fucking Patrick. He was pretty sure he’d be happy fucking only Patrick until he was dead and buried. Huh. 

But did he want Patrick to fuck Jake? It’d be hot as hell, that was a certainty. Patrick would be desperate and shaking and eager, with Jake’s mouth on his cock or Jake's fingers in his ass. He deserved that, someone’s mouth, or their ass, or their cock, if he wanted it. With anyone he wanted. He certainly deserved more than David. 

The water ran cold before he could figure it all out. 

_\-----------_

David slipped into bed beside Patrick, who was sleeping on his side, back to David. He stayed awake until morning, blinking at the ceiling and thinking, thinking, thinking. 

_\-----------_

David watched Patrick wake up, five minutes before his alarm, like Patrick always did. 

“Oh, you’re awake,” Patrick said with a small smile, nuzzling into his neck and wrapping an arm around him, two commas facing one another, mismatching punctuation marks. 

“Mm. Yeah. Very awake.”

“Sleep well?” Patrick asked, smoothing a hand over his chest and toying with the bottom hem of his shirt. 

“Uh. No. Definitely not.”

Patrick lifted his head, his hand stilling.

“Is everything okay?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

“You’re kind of freaking me out,” Patrick said, sleepy laxness fading from his body, tension in its wake.

“I’m freaking myself out too, if that’s any consolation.”

“It’s...really not,” Patrick said, pulling away to put a little space between them. “Is this about yesterday?”

“Yes, and also, other stuff.”

“You’re being really cryptic.”

“Do you want to fuck Jake?” David asked. 

“Oh. Well. That’s certainly not cryptic,” Patrick said, and it sounded like stalling. He picked at a loose thread on the comforter. 

“That’s not an answer though,” David pointed out.

“I mean,” Patrick began. “No. I don’t think so. No. Like I said last night, it’s too complicated. He’s your ex, anyway.”

“So, if it wasn’t complicated, you’re saying you’d want...”

“I’d...I don’t know. Maybe. Would you?”

David shook his head. He’d thought about it for hours, different scenarios. Testing himself to see if there was anything he missed, about other people, other people’s bodies, the way they sounded, or felt. But he came up empty. 

“Oh. Well, that’s fine,” Patrick said with a shrug. "Then I'm good, with how things are." As though that should be the end of it.

“Like the no babies thing was fine?” David asked. He’d thought about that a lot too, last night and every night since Patrick had his wisdom teeth removed. 

“Feels kind of weird to put those two things in the same category, but yeah. I don’t need either—to have a baby, or to sleep with other people.”

“There’s a big difference between ‘don’t need’ and ‘don’t want.’ I want to give you what you want. Everything you want.”

“You already do,” Patrick said, reaching across the bed to lace his fingers with David’s. 

“Hm. I just, I wonder. About that.”

“What, you don’t think I’m telling you the truth?” Patrick asked, with a wry half grin, as though David was teasing. He wasn’t teasing. 

“There’ve been times you...haven’t. Before. So.”

Patrick released his hand. “Do you mean like with Rachel, or when I didn’t tell you that I wasn’t out to my parents? I thought we’d talked all that through.”

“No, not those things. Or, not _just_ those things. More like when you didn’t tell me that everyone knew about...about...the incident with your sheets. When I— _you know_.” David didn’t want to say it. _That time I pissed your bed._ Fuck. “You thought I wouldn’t want to know, so you didn’t tell me. You decided that, for me. So what if—you think I wouldn’t want to know if you wanted to fuck other people—so you're choosing not to tell me.”

Patrick paled. 

“You don’t trust me, do you,” Patrick said in his smallest, worst voice, after a protracted pause. "Not really. Not about stuff that matters."

David blinked rapidly, before rolling on his back to stare at the ceiling again. There was a crack that David could have sworn wasn't there when Patrick moved in.

“Um. No. I don’t think I do. And that—that really fucks everything up. I don’t know if I can, _fuck_ , deal. With that.”

Patrick didn’t reply for a long time. 

“We’re not getting married, are we,” Patrick said eventually. And David had been wrong, before. This was his worst voice. 

“No, I don’t think we are.”

“But I love you. I really, really do,” Patrick said, voice breaking. Like loving someone changed anything. 

“I love you too. But sometimes. Sometimes things just don’t work out.”

David rolled back toward Patrick, who was facing away from him now, the little, jerking movements of his back and his shoulders as he cried breaking David’s heart. David pulled him close, and Patrick let him, tugging his arm around him and gripping it tight. 

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Sharon Van Etten's "I Love You But I'm Lost"


End file.
